RIP Robert McNamara

Without a doubt. But even with all that, it wasn't until after the Tet Offensive that the general public started to figure out that winning in Vietnam was going to take a lot more than we were prepared to expend.

But one thing to keep in mind is that we tend to look at that era through the eyes of 20-20 hindsight and a totally different mindset. You cannot overstate how badly this country was divided over Vietnam, at every level. In spite of everything -- 33,000 dead in those three years and the realization that we were spinning our wheels militarily -- there was still a large portion of the population, maybe even a majority, who believed as late as 1969 or 1970 that we should continue to fight to win.

It wasn't until '70, after Kent State, that most people began to understand what Vietnam was doing to this country and realizing that "winning," wasn't going to happen. When my mother began to argue, gently, but effectively, with my dad (who was a Navy Reserve pilot) about how she would feel if he or one of her sons (I was 15 in 1970) was killed in such a futile effort. That's when I knew it was over.

 

McNamara was a neocon before the word was even invented.

Rummy and Wolfowitz idolized the guy. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

 

Only important if you acknowledge that not all Democrats are pacifists who hate the military.

But you'll just selectively use that generalization at some other time, eh?

 

Clearly history shows that your statement is correct. I would say though that the democrat philsphy toward war has softened in the last 20 years.

Clearly Viet Nam was a democrat war that a Republican ended.

 

Joe Galloway with a heartfelt tribute:

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/71328.html

 

After another 25-thousand American deaths and increasing pressure to end the war.

I could be wrong, but I would posit that the spending we did in Vietnam (both LBJ and Nixon) along with keeping up the spending at home did more to hurt the economy in the 70s than anything Carter did. Just look at what is happening now with Iraq, tax cuts and the rest of domestic spending. Sure, deregulation and some other factors were at play, but we would be in much better shape now if war spending and domestic spending weren't so high.

 

Let's not forget that McNamara was also a not-particularly-good Ford executive.

 

His waiting 30 years for a mea culpa didn't help matters, either. I mean, RIP and all, but I bet that was an interesting conference with St. Peter before his next assignment.

 

Mr C,

No danger that he'll bump into Gen. Curtis LeMay there.

o-<